


Have Magic, Will Travel

by Katowisp



Series: Have Gun, Will Travel [1]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Reincarnation, Western
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-04
Updated: 2014-07-08
Packaged: 2018-02-07 10:03:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1894935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katowisp/pseuds/Katowisp
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur "Ace"  Pendragon tries to carry on his father's namesake in Camelot, Colorado. An upstart outlaw with ears too big by half stakes territory in the local canyon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Kid What

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Vaal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vaal/gifts).



“You can’t be telling me his name is _actually_ 'Kid What',” Ace said, raising an incredulous eyebrow.

His deputy, Lane, shrugged.

“Bet it’s not what his parents named him. It’s on the wanted poster like that."

Making a face, Ace looked down at the hastily drawn poster. While the moniker “kid” certainly fit the young face that looked out at him, his eyes were entirely too old and haunted to be anything other than wizened.

“He’s got some cheekbones,” Ace handed the poster back. “Says he’s wanted dead or alive, but whereabouts?”

“In Colorado Territory, word is he’s the fastest gun since Holliday.”

“Kill somebody?” Ace asked, leaning back in his chair. It was too hot by half, and his hat was doing him no favors. He plucked it off his head and set it on his desk where his “to-do” list was piled high. 

“Cendred Chance,” Lance provided, slipping his hands into his gunbelt. 

Ace looked up at the “wanted” wall, his brow furrowing.

“Wasn’t that guy on our wanted list, too?”

“Sure was,” Lance nodded. He moved to take the poster down. The parchment pulled free with a satisfying tear. 

“Hell! Sounds like this Kid What is doing our job for us.”

Lance looked contemplative.

“Sure ‘nough. Word is, the Kid took down Agravaine “Amos” Jones, too." 

“But we’re the law,” Liam opined. Ace ignored the look Lance shot at his fellow deputy. “It’s our duty to go after this man.”

“ _Kid_ ,” Wayne stressed. His blond curls were matted around his head, and sweat dripped down his face. He studied the Wanted poster with a focus Ace wasn’t sure he recognized from his impetuous deputy. 

“It’s what your father would’ve done,” Liam informed Ace archly, as though he could’ve forgotten exactly what Uther would’ve done. 

“I am not my father,” Ace told Liam shortly. “What has this “kid” done besides kill the people we were already gunning for?”

Liam frowned.

“Nothing, Sheriff.”

“Robbed no train, no banks? Held up no carriages?”

“No, but word is, he’s got a posse over in Box Canyon, and it’s worth worrying about,” Liam motioned towards the map of New Mexico posted on the wall. 

Ace sucked on the inside of his cheek.

"Are you honestly suggesting we go after this kid instead of keep the integrity of out town?”

“Hell no,” Percy and Wayne chimed, but Liam looked uncertain.

“He’s moved into our territory, if we’re to be respected, we should do something about it.”

“Lucky,” Ace turned to Elyan. He knew he was ridiculed for keeping the young black man on board, but he could care less what the gossiping hens had to say about his choice of deputies. Elyan was a good man, and had the singular ability to know when they were in trouble. “What say you?”

Elyan hesitated before shrugging.

“It’s your call, boss. I’ve got no grief with a man that does our job for us. You should talk to Gwen, see what she’s got to say.”

“I’m of the mind that if a man is keeping us out of trouble, she’s not to take issue with him,” Ace pointed out, and Elyan nodded. 

If Ace was ridiculed for keeping a half black, half Osage deputy on board, he was the talk of the town for marrying his sister, but unlike half the hypocrites he associated with, he believed in marrying the woman he loved and bedded. He never fooled around on her, which was more than could be said for most of the men he knew, who took a squaw when it suited them. 

“We should ride out for this man,” Liam insisted. “He’s killing folks.”

“He’s killing bad men,” Wayne stressed. “We should invite him on board.”

“His name isn’t Kid What; do you know the name of the man you’re wanting to kill?” The sheriff pierced Liam with a glare. 

“The only name I’ve been able to come up with isn’t much better,” Liam admitted. 

“What is it?”

Liam hesitated.

“They say he’s almost magic with a gun. They call him Merlin.”

 

a/n:  
Squaw is a pejorative, but a recognized term in the period of which this series is occurring. I mean no offense to anyone who might be reading.


	2. I Heard There's a New Outlaw in Town

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Turns out, Camelot, Colorado has something of a guardian.

“Heard there’s a new outlaw in town,” Gwen said in settled the dinner plate in front of Ace. 

“Where’d you hear that?” He asked noncommittally, stabbing at the steak she’d prepared. His father had vocally opposed his relationship with Elyan’s hardworking sister, but after he’d died of a lingering infection borne from a gunshot wound he'd sustained from Curly Joe, Ace had begun courting her properly. They’d been married within the year, and had been trying for kids ever since. 

His father had never been verbose about his wife’s death in childbirth, but Ace had begun to suspect that the difficulties of a child was a result of his family’s bad blood. He’d gone to Doc Gaius, the town’s local physician, on several occasions, but the man had only regarded him with haunted eyes and told him there was nothing to be done. 

“Around town,” Gwen said neutrally, sitting down at the table with a scrape of wood. 

“What’s the town saying? You outdid yourself with dinner.”

“Thanks. They’re saying he’s almost like Robin Hood—taking care of a lot of the criminals that have been bothering the county and never mind about hassling the trains and banks like half the no-goods.”

“That’s the word. What else they saying?”

“Just that he’s got a posse over in Box Canyon, and he’s a man to be reckoned with. Fastest draw this side of the Platte since Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday.”

“Yup,” Ace agreed, taking another bite. He worried the meat in this mouth. He was hoping for ill news of the Kid, something that would give him motivation to go after him. He found he couldn’t take issue with a man who was doing his job for him with no harm to he or his. 

“What are you going to do? They say he’s young.”

“Billy the Kid was young,” Ace pointed out. “A man with evil in his heart can kill as well as anybody.”

“Arthur,” Gwen said, and Ace felt himself straighten marginally. Only his father had called him by his given name, and usually only when he was in trouble. “You can’t murder this boy without cause.”

“I know that,” he replied tightly, and his heart melted when she smiled at him.

“You’re a good man, Arthur Pendragon.”

0o0o0o0o0o0o

Kid Merlin became a nonissue in the subsequent weeks. Cendred was dead, but his gang, the Essetirs, was raising hell.

Ace had thought Cendred had been bad enough, but he was quickly learning that the man had provided structure and without him, the gang had split into several factions. 

Most of the smaller groups were causing discontent for the ranchers in the outlying areas, but it was the largest group left, a band of men calling themselves Lot’s Own, that was proving to be the most formidable: they’d started moving themselves up from robbing stagecoaches to trains, and were making themselves a pretty penny in the process.

Percy threw open the door to the jail. The town drunk, secure in his cell, started from the sound, but Ace didn’t pay him any mind. 

“Lot’s Own just rode into town,” the large deputy informed the sheriff. Sweat poured from his face, and it was clear he’d run the distance from the barber. He wiped shaving cream from his chin. 

“Knew it was coming,” Wayne said, rocking forward in his chair. The front legs hit the dusty floorboards with a thump, and he grinned at Ace. “Looks like we’ve got a fight.”

Ace grabbed his gun belt. From the motion behind him, he knew Lance and Elyan were doing the same. Liam looked out the window, his right hand resting on his gun. 

“All right then,” Ace said, glancing out the window. “Let’s go make a presence.” He pulled open the door. 

Cenred’s second, Tom Ellis, came to a halt in front of the jail. His lip curled in a sneer. 

Ace had been around enough outlaws that he was expecting the man to pontificate about his cause and his mission, so he was caught somewhat flatfooted when the man drew on him. 

He hardly registered the rapport of his gun and the echoing shatter of glass behind him as the shot went wide. Blood blossomed on Ellis’ hand, and the gun fell bonelessly from his hand. He clutched his arm to his chest. Ace followed his gaze to a lone figure at the end of the town. 

The man—if he could be called that—was as lanky as a beanpole. His face was hooded by his hat, but even from this distance, Ace could spot the ears that poked out.

“It’s Merlin,” Lucky said, and Ace thought it was redundant. 

“The Kid,” Liam clarified, as if Arthur needed it. 

Apparently Ellis knew it too. Any deference he had for Ace’s and his deputies was disregarded, and the outlaw used his working hand to turn his horse. He called down the street.

“My fight’s not with you.”

“Mine’s with you, though,” a reedy voice returned. There was a strange accent to it that Ace couldn’t quite place, but he recognized the steel underneath. Ellis recognized it as well, and his horse trotted back a few feet. 

“We was just funnin’ around,” he tried.

“’Fun around’ elsewhere,” the Kid replied coolly. 

Ellis looked hesitant, but Ace saw his second turn his horse away from the kid. 

“C’mon, Tom. There’s richer towns. This one ain’t worth it.”

Happy to have an out, he nodded.

“Awright,” he called down the dusty road. “We’ve got not issue with you, we’ll be moving along.”

“See that it stay that way,” the Kid said, and Ellis nodded. 

“You won’t be seeing us around here no more, you got my word.” The outlaw turned his horse and the gang thundered away, a cloud of dust forming in their wake. Ace moved to talk to the Kid, but Liam grabbed his shoulder.

“You going to arrest him?”

“I don’t know,” Ace glanced back at Liam. When he turned back down the road, the slight form, along with his painted horse, was gone. 

A/N: Easter egg: Tom Ellis is the name of Cendred’s actor. 

To assuage any confusion, Elyan and Lucky are the same person. Wayne is Gawaine.


	3. A Dress of Calico

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arthur runs into the Kid during a snowstorm.

Ace bought Gwen a dress of calico from the new dressmaker in town. Camelot, Colorado was doing well enough off the silver mines and the gold in the local river that Camelot had become something of a boomtown. 

What Ace and his deputies knew was that since Kid Merlin had become something of the local guardian, businessmen were flocking to the town. The Kid, who seemed to have something of a preternatural ability when it came to trouble and the town, met anybody who tried anything. 

Ace didn’t know how the Kid knew when trouble was coming, and every time he aimed to close in on the outlaw to get some answers from him, something would happen that would distract his attention and when he looked back, the Kid would be gone.

“Merlin is a ridiculous name,” he griped to Lance. “That’s the name of that wizard from that story.”

“The Legend of Arthur,” Liam supplied. He was better read than the rest of him. “The greatest magician who ever lived.”

“I’m named after one of the knights,” Lance supplied. “Lancelot.”

Before Ace could dwell on the irony, Liam said, “Fact remains: Merlin’s an outlaw, and we got no room for his type in the country we’re building.”

“Aw, hell,” Wayne complained, “He ain’t doing nobody any kinda harm. If anything, he’s made us a boomtown. Nobody this side of the Platte is trying to mess with us, and that’s saying something.”

“We’ve got a job,” Liam replied heatedly, “and it’s to bring law to the West.”

“Has anyone tried talking to him?” Lucky ventured, and the deputies turned to the black man. He squared his shoulders. “I mean, he’s fighting on our side, right? Might as well see if he wants to sign on with us.”

“He’s got a point,” Wayne agreed. 

“Outlaws just don’t become good people,” Liam argued, but Ace felt he was just playing the advocate. 

“I don’t feel like he’s a bad guy in the first place,” Lucky returned with a frown. 

“I don’t know why we’re arguing about him,” Lance said, “I heard that Magnolia Jane has an eye on Camelot, and she’s got a gang bigger than anything said about Merlin’s posse.”

“We’re too small time for her like,” Wayne said quickly. “She’s going after the proper boomtowns, like Glenwood Springs.”

Later that evening, Arthur broached the issue with Gwen. She smiled into the porcelain basin of cool water they’d pumped from the well. 

“Magnolia Jane is formidable,” she agreed. “But Kid Merlin can handle her.”

Ace wondered if she was right. 

0o0o0o0o0o

By November of the following year, Camelot had become established enough that they’d begun to gain the unwanted attentions of Magnolia Jane.

Ace took a ride over the mountain to Eagle to gather more men against her. From all reports, Magnolia Jane and her posse, headed by Morgan Gorlois, were closing in on the town; his deputies were gathering as many men as Ace could swear in. There was a war coming, and they had to be ready.

Ace had just left Eagle when the first snow began falling. If he were lucky, he’d be able to make it over the pass in time to get back to Camelot. 

But as the snow quickened, he realized he wasn’t going to clear the pass. His Mustang, Buster in the Black, was already struggling in the gathering snow and Ace realized they’d have to find some place to bed down or risk exposure.

There was a glowing light off in the woods, and Ace guided his horse towards the beacon. They came across a ramshackle cabin, common among the trappers that still live in the mountains. 

Ace was expecting a grizzled old man to answer the door, so he was more than a little surprised when the door opened just as he went to knock and Kid Merlin looked out at me.

“Arthur,” he said, “I’ve been expecting you.”

Ace forced his mouth close with a sharp click. He stood hesitant at the threshold. 

“Well, are you coming in, or aren’t you? You’re letting the cold in,” the outlaw pointed out mildly. Ace glanced over his shoulder. A fire burned merrily in the hearth and against all expectations, the cabin was well furnished and quite tidy. 

“I guess I’m coming in,” he hedged, taking off his hat as he stepped inside. In consideration, he stomped his feet off.

“I’ll manage your horse,” the Kid said. Belatedly, Ace realized the outlaw was already dressed for the weather, as if he’d expected to be called on. Ace allowed his mouth to hang open as he watched the Kid guide his horse over to a small stable he’d failed to notice in the gathering storm. 

By the time he’d returned, Ace was already drying himself by the fire. He turned as Merlin let himself in. 

“Are we going to fight?” he asked.

Merlin shrugged. 

“You’re my guest, and it’s not my wont to fight a guest. But it’s up to you, I suppose.”

“You talk strangely,” Ace said as way of deferring the fight. 

“I’m sure I do,” the Kid agreed mildly. 

Ace stamped his feet. In any other situation, he’d take his boots off to dry, but now he stood uncertainly. The Kid eyed him. 

“Take your boots off if you want,” he said. “I’m not going to kill you while you do.”

Slowly, Ace removed his boots. His wool socks were soggy and he was thankful to expose them to the heat. He stamped in front of the fireplace, leaving little wet footprints. The Kid watched him bemusedly, and he felt oddly self-conscious. He stood, shoulders squared. He’d imagined his meeting with Kid Merlin a thousand times in his head, but he’d never thought it would be in an abandoned trapper’s cabin when he was trying to make a pass. 

“This isn’t your cabin,” he realized aloud.

“No,” the Kid agreed in his funny lilt. “It isn’t.”

“This is out of your territory,” he accused. 

The Kid looked bemused. 

“I wasn’t aware outlaws had defined territories.” He paused. “But you’re certainly out of yours.”

Ace shifted his weight uncomfortably.

“I’m swearing in deputies,” he admitted, and bit his tongue, realizing he shouldn’t reveal the information to the weird outlaw-not-outlaw that resided on the periphery of Camelot. 

“I know,” the Kid nodded. He settled into a grand old oak chair that sat before the fire, and motioned for Ace to do the same. He paused—he’d not even realized there’d been chairs there at all—but they were here now, and he chalked the discrepancy to the cold and the discomfiting presence of the Kid. 

“How do you know?” Ace asked, settling into the proffered chair uneasily.

“I know a lot,” the Kid hedged. 

They fell into silence, before Ace blurted, “What’s your name?”

The outlaw turned to regard him. “What do you call me?”

“'Kid What' is on your wanted poster,” he said. “But we call you ‘the Kid’ or 'Kid Merlin.’”

“Merlin is fine,” the kid finally said, and the grin that he gave Ace was so loaded, that he wondered just how old the outlaw was. For a second, he looked a hundred times older than his face betrayed. In the next half-second that he blinked, the exceedingly young face of the Merlin looked back at him. 

“I imagine you’re having some difficulty getting men to fight against Magnolia Jane.”

“You imagine correctly,” Ace allowed. 

“Men will fight for you because you’re a good man,” Merlin said, leaning back against his chair. 

“Good men will die for me, against her posse.”

“No,” Merlin said, and his voice was steel, “they won’t. Not anymore.”

“You talk like if you’ve been here before.”

When Merlin looked at him again, Ace was caught in the bright blue orbs, and he thought, for a moment, he recognized them, as if from a dream forgotten on the waking “I think it’s time for you to sleep.”

“I’m not tired,” he protested, but he heard a foreign word and felt incredibly tired, anyway. 

0o0o0o0o0o

When Ace awoke, he was alone in the cabin, and the fire was little more than embers. He found a cleared path both to the stable and all the way back to Camelot.

“I didn’t think you were going to make it back,” Gwen clutched him, her eyes bright with tears. 

“I’d never leave you,” he said by way of explanation, but his thoughts were on the young man with eyes much too old, and his heart felt funny. 

 

A/N: Glenwood Springs is where my favorite Wild West hero/outlaw, Doc Holliday, is buried. 

Magnolia Jane is, of course, Moraguse.


	4. He Travels to Wherever he Must

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Merlin's always just a shade too late.

Ace stared down the barrel of Magnolia Jane’s iron. Abstractly, he realized how beautiful she was, but the issue of her beauty had become a nonissue when she stuck a gun in his face. He’d only meant to enjoy a ride out with his best friend and first deputy, and his canteen was still dipped into the cool waters of the mountain spring he was collecting from. He felt the cool water spill over his hand. 

He saw Lance’s hand dip for his weapon out of the corner out of his eye. 

_Don’t_ , he willed. 

But Gwen had started sharing gazes that lingered too long with Lance, and for a second, Ace thought he wouldn’t care if his friend fell to Magnolia Jane. At least he’d died honorably, and Ace wouldn’t have to worry anymore about his wife’s loyalties. 

He regretted the thought the moment Magnolia Jane shifted her weight and pulled the trigger. Lance fell back in a spray of blood, falling half in the river and half on the shore. The cool water stole Lance’s life away, and Ace whispered a prayer that his best friend might live. He’d never been serious about wanting him to die—if Gwen fell comfort in Lance’s arms, it was Ace’s fault and nobody else’s. 

“We’ll get you back to Doc,” he promised.

“No,” Lance whispered. “You won’t.”

There was the rapport of a gunshot, and Ace felt himself tensing in expectation of the pain to follow. He heard a thud, and looked up from Lance to see Jane staring expressionlessly back at him. Gore and blood ran from her forehead, as good a shot as Ace had ever seen. 

Already knowing who had been at the other end of that bullet, he squinted against the sun. 

“You came too late,” he told the figure edging around the rocks.

Merlin nodded. “I’m sorry,” and his cool face broke for a moment and Ace thought he looked entirely too sad for a man he’d never met. “I will help you with his grave.”

He didn’t have to look down to know that Lance’s heart had stilled in his chest. 

They had not the means to dig a proper grave, but the ground was too unforgiving even if they had, so they built a cairn around Lance and Arthur whispered a prayer over him. 

“What about her?” He nodded to Magnolia Jane. 

“What about her?” Merlin echoed coldly. “Leave her to the vultures.”

Ace hesitated. Nothing in the way he’d been raised allowed him to think that was okay. He said as much.

“She was going to kill you both,” the Kid said, and Ace finally saw the edge that made him a killer and an outlaw. “and leave you here to die. If you want to gather her stones, I don’t care. But I will not help you.”

Ace looked down at the rapidly cooling body. She’d caused a lot of discontent in her life, but from this distance, her brains smattered against the rock wall from Merlin’s deadly aim, he couldn’t help but acknowledge just how…human she looked. There was nothing monstrous about a dead woman splayed across the rocks. 

“We need to bury her, too,” he told the Kid. 

There was a coldness in the outlaw’s eyes that was not dissimilar to the way a cloudless sky was reflected in an alpine lake, and he was struck by the fact that although Merlin had never turned his gun against Ace, he was a killer all the same. “I will not honor the woman who killed Lancelot.”

“Lance,” Arthur corrected automatically before looking at Merlin sharply. “How’d you know his name was Lancelot?”

“Build her cairn if you see fit, but I’ll have no part of it.” Merlin turned to leave. Arthur felt for his pistol and pulled it free. 

“Would you shoot a man in the back?” The Kid asked, and he did not turn around. 

“You’re an outlaw and I mean to take you in.”

“I didn’t think so,” he snorted, and continued walking. 

0o0o0o0o0 

“What about Magnolia Jane?” Wayne asked.

“The Kid killed her,” Ace replied hollowly. He couldn’t shake the cold look in the icy blue eyes, and although he’d been responsible for a few deaths in his time, he’d never held such disregard for a fellow human’s life. 

“He doesn’t have a star on his chest,” Liam informed him, “If we’re to bring order to the West, it’s our job to bring him to justice.”

_It’s our job to bring him to justice, or kill him in the process_ , Liam left unspoken. 

Ace wasn’t sure if he disagreed.

**Author's Note:**

> I got the idea for a Western style Merlin reboot. The vignettes will be posted accordingly. 
> 
> Nobody belongs to me. Also, a Merlin Western reboot? I'm a crazy person.


End file.
